News
On the verge of extinction
Today, we have reached a critical stage where man and elephant can no longer share the land. Once respected and admired as a ‘noble’ animal, the pachyderm is now considered a nuisance by the men living closest to him. But it is man himself who robbed the elephant of its territory, and man himself who slays him as vermin when he returns looking for his old stomping grounds.
Many elephants have been killed recently. One of our pictures shows a herd of elephants, looking out of place in an ugly, denuded open place which once used to be part of a jungle.Man also covets the precious ivory tusks and the ‘gajamuthu’ growing in the tusks of the animal and is another reason behind the slaughter of these gentle giants.
But the most iconic image caught by our cameraman is that of the lordly elephant struggling against humans. It encapsulates how man, comparatively puny, but shrewd, has reduced this majestic giant of the jungles to no less than his slave.
Elephants are often slaughtered for the gajamuthu or elephant pearls which grow inside the tusks
The gajamuthu or elephant pearls grow inside the tusks
Majestic beasts driven out of what was once their forested stomping grounds
A crime against nature –born free, now tied, tethered and tortured…